Difference between Incremental and Differential Backup

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by hannaxbear, Jun 4, 2009.

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  1. hannaxbear

    hannaxbear Registered Member

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    I've read the definitions of incremental and differential backups but I still don't completely understand what's the difference...?
     
  2. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    For both you start with a Full backup.

    An incremental backs up changes (new files, modified files, deletions) that have occurred since the Full backup or the full backup and the last incremental. If you do several incrementals you end up with a chain of incrementals and to do a restore you restore the full and the all of the chain to get to the latest backed up state. You can select an incremental in the "middle" of the chain and restore to that point.

    A differential backs up the changes that occurred since the full backup always. If you have done several differentials they don't matter; the new differential always references the full. The advantage is that to do a restore you you only need the full and the last differential to get to that point.

    The general rule is that incrementals are faster to create but longer to restore and differentials are slower to create and faster to restore.

    A caution with a long chain of incrementals, if any one of the incrementals in the chain is bad then all of the incrementals created after it are useless.
     
  3. hannaxbear

    hannaxbear Registered Member

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    Oh okay, thank you so much!
     
  4. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello hannaxbear,

    Thank you for your interest in Acronis Products

    Check the following KB article describing difference between incremental and differential backup archives. You will find graphical representation of the differences between full, incremental and differential backups.

    Best regards,
    --
    Dmitry Nikolaev
     
  5. GirlInterrupted

    GirlInterrupted Registered Member

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    Is it possible to set which type of backup, Full, Incremental, or Differential, should be used as the default?

    I usually make Full backups, and I need to keep setting that, because it defaults to Incremental.

    I've looked in Help and in the Options menu, but I don't see a way to set up a preferred method.

    Is this possible?

    Thank you.
     
  6. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    I think I know what you mean. I only do full manual backups and assign my own filenames. I tell it I want a full and then the next screen pops up with incremental checked. There is now way I know of to change this.

    However, and I've never tried it, if you have a assigned a name to the backup and it is not already in-use then TI likely will make a full since there is no full to base the incremental on. This is how previous versions worked. In other words you probably don't have to change the incremental setting.
     
  7. GirlInterrupted

    GirlInterrupted Registered Member

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    Hmm... that makes sense, I guess. I'll have to try that. But I'm not sure how to verify that it's doing what I think it's doing.

    This is Acronis True Image Home 2009 that I'm using.

    Even if that is how it works, would be nice to have an explicit option, just to remove any guesswork. I was surprised I couldn't find an option for it.

    Thanks for the reply! :)
     
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